The present invention relates to medical diagnosis image display methods and apparatuses, and more particularly to a medical diagnosis image display method and apparatus for rotating in a three-dimensional plane an image displayed on a monitor and imaging the rotated image.
A medical diagnosis display apparatus of this type is very advantageous for diagnosis because, for example, a head, or other body part, of a subject patient to be examined and diagnosed can be viewed in various directions.
The rotating function is incorporated into a medical diagnosis image display apparatus for obtaining a tomogram image of a subject to be diagnosed such as an X-ray computed tomography (XCT), a magnetic resonance image diagnosis device (MRI) or a single photon emission CT (SPECT) .
One conventional method of three-dimensionally rotating an image displayed on a monitor and displaying an image obtained in the course of image rotation is as follows:
For example, sliced images are obtained as I.sub.1, I.sub.2, I.sub.3, . . . , I.sub.n by slicing an image of a head of a subject to be examined and diagnosed, transversely to the longitudinal body axis direction, as shown in FIG. 7A. The two-dimensional image information on the respective sliced images I.sub.1, I.sub.2, I.sub.3, . . . , I.sub.n is obtained to provide the three-dimensional image information corresponding to the sliced positions of the subject, as shown in FIG. 7B.
On the basis of the three-dimensional image information thus obtained, angle designation information, for example, from a track ball is used to provide two-dimensional image information viewed in the direction of the designated angle and an image is displayed on the basis of the two-dimensional image information.
In this case, if the viewing angle is changed linearly by the track ball, the image displayed on the monitor is rotated three-dimensionally.
As described above, since the two-dimensional image displayed on the monitor can be viewed in various directions, this method is very convenient for examination, for example, of a soft tissue or a bone tissue of a subject.
However, conventional devices would display these soft tissue and bone tissue separately without allowing for the positional relationship between them, that is none of the conventional devices display the soft tissue and bone tissues together in the relationship thereinbetween.
Thus, for example, if an operation is performed on the head of a burn patient, the positional relationship of the soft tissue to the skull is not immediately or accurately recognized thereby prohibiting the necessary operation procedures from being immediately determined.